Here is the summary:
State and federal governments in the United States face massive looming fiscal deficits. One policy change that can reduce deficits is ending the drug war. Legalization means reduced expenditure on enforcement and an increase in tax revenue from legalized sales.
This report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. Of these savings, $25.7 billion would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government.
Approximately $8.7 billion of the savings would result from legalization of marijuana and $32.6 billion from legalization of other drugs.
The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana and $38.0 billion from legalization of other drugs.
But no worries, right? I mean, we have money to burn!
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf
I am a big supporter of ending the drug war, for many reasons, but to see these numbers officially published still blows my mind. How can our government stand there and say that drugs are bad(which they are) and they need to be banned when here we have facts that show how much legalizing marijuana can be beneficial to America. If America was where it was 20 years ago, I could maybe see us still keeping the drug war alive because it would still seem like the right thing to do. But we have advanced far past where we were when we first started the drug war, and those in power need to see that things have changed and that this war is no longer necessary. We could greatly change our economy and our deficits(state and nation wide) if only we were to alter this one aspect.
ReplyDeleteI believe the drug war is a necessity. It, without a doubt, has taken a turn in the wrong direction and the true objectives of it as well as the means to achieve them have been altered and exaggerated. Manipulating the goals and boundaries of the "war" have been attributed to a few select movements and party beliefs of those who hold office. Common practices and platforms of political offices have without a doubt have been corrupted and driven by financial interests. These facts are disappointing and discouraging but no need to cut our losses and give up. We would have lost all of this money in vain. Drugs are a problem in America. Maybe not for us here at a state university, us who live in suburbia but for people that don't have this luxury and those who knowingly poison our society. Drugs are illegal and they need to stay illegal. I don't want to live in a nation where a cop won't slap a needle out of my kids hand and punish him for it. Our government should protect and serve, not overlook problems and give up. If you take rules out of school, kids will misbehave. If there are no rules to break, that doesn't mean people's actions will be orderly. I'm not saying everyone should believe what I do, but taking rules away from our society will not maintain order. The drug war needs to finish what it started because drugs are a problem in our nation.
ReplyDeleteI believe in ending the drug war and legalizing marijauna because it is an expensive fight that we can not win. It is really hard to fight an object. Though I support the leagalization of marijauna so that they are not clogging up the courts and we save money on trying to find these offenders and locking them up. Not to mention the benifit of taxing the crap out of the drug would also help our economy, plus the creation of new jobs because the government would have to regulate it and higher people to grow it. However I am not for legalizing all drugs.
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